Welcome to the San Miguel Writers’ Conference Writing Contest

IMPORTANT DATES

Open for submissions: July 11, 2025. 

Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2026.

Winners will be announced: November 15, 2026.

CATEGORIES

Submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction/memoir are welcome.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Limited to emerging writers who have not yet published 10,000 copies of any book.
• The submission must be unpublished work.

PRIZES

One winner will be chosen from each category and will win one “The Works" Package to the 2027 Conference. This package is worth $1,795 USD and includes full access to the conference, including parties and receptions, seven 90-minute workshops/Literary Spotlight presentations and two six-hour intensive workshops. See our website for a full list of everything "The Works" Package includes. Winners will also receive accommodation for the dates of the conference upon request.

JUDGES

Three winners will be chosen, one in each category, by these distinguished authors:

Ivy Pochoda, Fiction

Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ecstasy, Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, as well as the 2025 ITW Thriller Award. She has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row, Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.

Ben Widdicombe, Creative Nonfiction/Memoir

Ben Widdicombe is a Kirkus-starred memoirist (Gatecrasher, 2020), as well as a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter. He is a former weekly columnist for the New York Times and a current contributor to its Opinion section.

Pamela Uschuk, Poetry

Pamela Uschuk’s is a wildling poet,  a human, immigrant and wilderness rights activist.  Her eight poetry books include Crazy Love, American Book Award and Refugee, Red Hen Press, Los Angeles (Named by Orion as among their top 14 poetry books 2022 and by Kirkus Review among of their ten top books of 2023). Red Hen reprinted Blood Flower in 2025 and will publish the 2nd Edition of Crazy Love, 2026, and Wild in the Plaza of Memory as well as her newest collection, Pulling Down Sky. 

Translated into more than a dozen languages, her work appears worldwide, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Agni Review, terrain.org etc. Her awards include Best of the Web, 2024 Pearl S. Buck Writer-In-Residence, Randolph College, the Struga International Poetry Prize (for a theme poem), Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, and prizes from Ascent and Amnesty International.  

Editor-In-Chief of CUTTHROAT, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS, Uschuk edited the anthologies, Truth To Power:  Writers Respond To The Rhetoric Of Hate And Fear, 2017, Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, 2020, and Through the Ash, New Leaves, 2022, The Nature of Nature and Human Nature, 2023 and Taking Liberties, 2025.  Pamela teaches at the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center, and is a Black Earth Institute Senior Fellow and Board member. She’s finishing work on a multi-genre medical memoir,  Hope’s Crazed Angels: An Odyssey Through The Whispering Disease.  http://www.cutthroatmag.com//  or http://www.pamelauschuk.com//

READING

Winners will be asked to read an excerpt of their winning submission during the conference!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Fiction: 2,500 words of double spaced 12pt prose.
• Creative Nonfiction/ Memoir: 2,500 words of double spaced 12pt prose.
• Poetry: Three poems of no more than ten pages.
• Please use Times New Roman or Calibri font.
• Please do not include your name in the body of your creative submission.

COST

Cost per submission: $35

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please add contest@sanmiguelwritersconference.org to your contact list, so our emails are not sent to Spam and you never miss out on important messages

Note: If you begin filling out a submission proposal and realize you are missing information, you can scroll to the bottom, save your proposal as a draft, and come back later to finish it.

For more information about the San Miguel Writers’ Conference or the San Miguel Literary Sala please visit our websites: https://sanmiguelwritersconference.org/ 

Welcome to the San Miguel Writers’ Conference Writing Contest

IMPORTANT DATES

Open for submissions: July 11, 2025. 

Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2026.

Winners will be announced: November 15, 2026.

CATEGORIES

Submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction/memoir are welcome.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Limited to emerging writers who have not yet published 10,000 copies of any book.
• The submission must be unpublished work.

PRIZES

One winner will be chosen from each category and will win one “The Works" Package to the 2027 Conference. This package is worth $1,795 USD and includes full access to the conference, including parties and receptions, seven 90-minute workshops/Literary Spotlight presentations and two six-hour intensive workshops. See our website for a full list of everything "The Works" Package includes. Winners will also receive accommodation for the dates of the conference upon request.

JUDGES

Three winners will be chosen, one in each category, by these distinguished authors:

Ivy Pochoda, Fiction

Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ecstasy, Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, as well as the 2025 ITW Thriller Award. She has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row, Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.

Ben Widdicombe, Creative Nonfiction/Memoir

Ben Widdicombe is a Kirkus-starred memoirist (Gatecrasher, 2020), as well as a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter. He is a former weekly columnist for the New York Times and a current contributor to its Opinion section.

Pamela Uschuk, Poetry

Pamela Uschuk’s is a wildling poet,  a human, immigrant and wilderness rights activist.  Her eight poetry books include Crazy Love, American Book Award and Refugee, Red Hen Press, Los Angeles (Named by Orion as among their top 14 poetry books 2022 and by Kirkus Review among of their ten top books of 2023). Red Hen reprinted Blood Flower in 2025 and will publish the 2nd Edition of Crazy Love, 2026, and Wild in the Plaza of Memory as well as her newest collection, Pulling Down Sky. 

Translated into more than a dozen languages, her work appears worldwide, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Agni Review, terrain.org etc. Her awards include Best of the Web, 2024 Pearl S. Buck Writer-In-Residence, Randolph College, the Struga International Poetry Prize (for a theme poem), Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, and prizes from Ascent and Amnesty International.  

Editor-In-Chief of CUTTHROAT, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS, Uschuk edited the anthologies, Truth To Power:  Writers Respond To The Rhetoric Of Hate And Fear, 2017, Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, 2020, and Through the Ash, New Leaves, 2022, The Nature of Nature and Human Nature, 2023 and Taking Liberties, 2025.  Pamela teaches at the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center, and is a Black Earth Institute Senior Fellow and Board member. She’s finishing work on a multi-genre medical memoir,  Hope’s Crazed Angels: An Odyssey Through The Whispering Disease.  http://www.cutthroatmag.com//  or http://www.pamelauschuk.com//

READING

Winners will be asked to read an excerpt of their winning submission during the conference!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Fiction: 2,500 words of double spaced 12pt prose.
• Creative Nonfiction/ Memoir: 2,500 words of double spaced 12pt prose.
• Poetry: Three poems of no more than ten pages.
• Please use Times New Roman or Calibri font.
• Please do not include your name in the body of your creative submission.

COST

Cost per submission: $35

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please add contest@sanmiguelwritersconference.org to your contact list, so our emails are not sent to Spam and you never miss out on important messages

Note: If you begin filling out a submission proposal and realize you are missing information, you can scroll to the bottom, save your proposal as a draft, and come back later to finish it.

For more information about the San Miguel Writers’ Conference or the San Miguel Literary Sala please visit our websites: https://sanmiguelwritersconference.org/ 

Welcome to the San Miguel Writers’ Conference Writing Contest

IMPORTANT DATES

Open for submissions: July 11, 2025. 

Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2026.

Winners will be announced: November 15, 2026.

CATEGORIES

Submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction/memoir are welcome.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Limited to emerging writers who have not yet published 10,000 copies of any book.
• The submission must be unpublished work.

PRIZES

One winner will be chosen from each category and will win one “The Works" Package to the 2027 Conference. This package is worth $1,795 USD and includes full access to the conference, including parties and receptions, seven 90-minute workshops/Literary Spotlight presentations and two six-hour intensive workshops. See our website for a full list of everything "The Works" Package includes. Winners will also receive accommodation for the dates of the conference upon request.

JUDGES

Three winners will be chosen, one in each category, by these distinguished authors:

Ivy Pochoda, Fiction

Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ecstasy, Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, as well as the 2025 ITW Thriller Award. She has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row, Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.

Ben Widdicombe, Creative Nonfiction/Memoir

Ben Widdicombe is a Kirkus-starred memoirist (Gatecrasher, 2020), as well as a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter. He is a former weekly columnist for the New York Times and a current contributor to its Opinion section.

Pamela Uschuk, Poetry

Pamela Uschuk’s is a wildling poet,  a human, immigrant and wilderness rights activist.  Her eight poetry books include Crazy Love, American Book Award and Refugee, Red Hen Press, Los Angeles (Named by Orion as among their top 14 poetry books 2022 and by Kirkus Review among of their ten top books of 2023). Red Hen reprinted Blood Flower in 2025 and will publish the 2nd Edition of Crazy Love, 2026, and Wild in the Plaza of Memory as well as her newest collection, Pulling Down Sky. 

Translated into more than a dozen languages, her work appears worldwide, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Agni Review, terrain.org etc. Her awards include Best of the Web, 2024 Pearl S. Buck Writer-In-Residence, Randolph College, the Struga International Poetry Prize (for a theme poem), Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, and prizes from Ascent and Amnesty International.  

Editor-In-Chief of CUTTHROAT, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS, Uschuk edited the anthologies, Truth To Power:  Writers Respond To The Rhetoric Of Hate And Fear, 2017, Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, 2020, and Through the Ash, New Leaves, 2022, The Nature of Nature and Human Nature, 2023 and Taking Liberties, 2025.  Pamela teaches at the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center, and is a Black Earth Institute Senior Fellow and Board member. She’s finishing work on a multi-genre medical memoir,  Hope’s Crazed Angels: An Odyssey Through The Whispering Disease.  http://www.cutthroatmag.com//  or http://www.pamelauschuk.com//

READING

Winners will be asked to read an excerpt of their winning submission during the conference!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Fiction: 2,500 words of double spaced 12pt prose.
• Creative Nonfiction/ Memoir: 2,500 words of double spaced 12pt prose.
• Poetry: Three poems of no more than ten pages.
• Please use Times New Roman or Calibri font.
• Please do not include your name in the body of your creative submission.

COST

Cost per submission: $35

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please add contest@sanmiguelwritersconference.org to your contact list, so our emails are not sent to Spam and you never miss out on important messages

Note: If you begin filling out a submission proposal and realize you are missing information, you can scroll to the bottom, save your proposal as a draft, and come back later to finish it.

For more information about the San Miguel Writers’ Conference or the San Miguel Literary Sala please visit our websites: https://sanmiguelwritersconference.org/ 

CONVOCATORIA 

11° Concurso Internacional de Cuento de la Sala Literaria San Miguel A.C. 

El Concurso Internacional de Cuento se llevará a cabo en el marco del 22° Festival Internacional de Escritores y Literatura en San Miguel de Allende que se realizará del 10 al 14 de febrero de 2027, en San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México. Invitamos a estudiantes, profesionales y público en general interesados en la escritura a participar en este emocionante evento literario.  

BASES DEL CONCURSO 

1. Participantes:  

• Podrán participar escritores hispanohablantes, mayores de edad, que no residan en la República Mexicana, interesados en la escritura de cuentos con textos escritos predominantemente en lengua española. 

2. Formato de los textos:  

• Los escritos en prosa no deben exceder las 7,500 palabras. 
• Deberán ser escritos a doble espacio (interlineado 2) y con letra Times New Roman de 12 puntos, en formato Word o PDF. 
• Tema libre
• Los trabajos deberán ser inéditos y originales y no generados por herramientas de inteligencia artificial (IA). 

3. Entrega de trabajos:  

• Esta convocatoria estará abierta a partir del 11 de julio de 2026.
• Fecha límite de entrega: 15 de septiembre de 2026, hasta las 23:00 horas, Zona Centro UTC-6.
• Cuota de inscripción: Un costo de recuperación de $35 dólares debe acompañar cada trabajo en prosa.
• Sólo se aceptarán los trabajos enviados al sitio web Submittable. El proceso de presentación y pago es totalmente electrónico. No se aceptarán manuscritos en papel.
• Las propuestas se leerán “a ciegas”. El nombre del autor(a) no debe aparecer en ninguna parte de la obra, incluidos los encabezados o pies de página.
• Los solicitantes pueden enviar varias propuestas. Cada envío debe estar completo, cargarse por separado en el sitio web Submittable e ir acompañado de la cuota de inscripción correspondiente.
• Se notificará a los solicitantes de los resultados el 15 de noviembre de 2026. La decisión de los jueces es inapelable. Se puede seguir el progreso del envío en el sitio web Submittable.
• Los envíos pueden ser retirados del concurso en cualquier momento mediante la firma en submittable y haciendo clic en Retirar junto a la presentación. No habrá reembolsos por las presentaciones retiradas.
• Si se tienen problemas para enviar la propuesta, desplazarse hasta la parte inferior de la página y hacer clic en “Technical Help” (Ayuda técnica). El personal de soporte de Submittable es muy útil si se tienen problemas para subir el material o pagar en línea.

4. Premios:  

• Se entregará UN PREMIO.  
• El premio consistirá en el Registro del Ganador o Ganadora al “Programa La Obra Completa” del Festival de Escritores en San Miguel en febrero de 2027, que incluye la entrada a todos los talleres de escritura, conferencias en español e inglés, paneles y eventos dentro del programa mencionado, así como fiestas y recepciones. 

5. Observaciones:  

• La transportación y hospedaje corre por cuenta del participante ganador.  
• Este premio es intransferible.
• Al inscribirse a este concurso, el participante confirma que cuenta con los documentos migratorios necesarios para viajar a México en caso de que resulte ganador. El Festival de Escritores no tiene la capacidad de realizar ningún trámite ante las embajadas o consulados.  
• Para cualquier duda o aclaración referente al concurso, queda disponible el siguiente correo: concurso@sanmiguelfestivalescritores.org.  

RESULTADOS DEL CONCURSO 

Los resultados serán dados a conocer vía correo electrónico y serán publicados en el sitio web  (sanmiguelwritersconference.org/es) y redes sociales oficiales del Festival Internacional de Escritores y Literatura en San Miguel de Allende, a partir del día 15 de noviembre de 2025.